>> finally, dear abc. ♪ ♪ >> thank y'all so much for watching "fox&friends" this morning. have a good monday, everybody. >> it came from a lab, that is the conclusion from the u.s. department of energy, saying an accident at a chinese facility, likely started a global pandemic that's now killed nearly 7 million people. good morning, everybody. headlines that you may not hear everywhere. i'll bill hemmer. hope you had a good weekend. hello to you. how was your weekend? >> it was great. how was yours? >> it was an 11. >> i'm dana perino. this is "america's news room." the report basing findings on classified intelligence also

made available to the white house and congress, the department reaching the same conclusion as the fbi, that covid probably escaped from a lab. >> keep in mind, this was repeatedly dismissed as a conspiracy theory over and over again, both by scientists and members of the media. that is not the only thing that's giving folks whiplash in recent weeks. >> a major study finding masks made no difference in stopping the spread, concluding natural immunity provided as much protection as being double vaccinated. >> and the talking heads all too quick to dismiss it. >> i'm really sorry that the lab leak has become a distraction for so many people. frankly we still don't know. there's no evidence really to say. >> it's very strongly leading to this could not have been artificially manipulated. >> just weeks ago, dr. jonathan

fauci disputed the conspiracy that it was made in a lab in china. >> escaped from the lab, sounds like something from a marvel movie or a science book. this coronavirus was not man-made. that is not a possibility. >> yet the white house is downplaying the report arguing the findings are not definitive. >> some elements of the intelligence community have reached conclusions on one side, only on the other. a number have said they don't have enough information to be sure. one of the things in the "wall street journal" report, which i can't confirm or deny, but i will say the reference to the department of energy, president biden specifically requested that the national labs, which are part of the department of energy, be brought into this assessment because he wants to put every tool at use to be able to figure out what happened here, but right now there's not a definitive answer that has emerged from the intelligence community on this question. >> we begin with peter doocy at

the white house. >> new spin from the chinese government. it reads like this, certain parties should stop rehashing the lab leak narrative, stop smearing china, and stop politicizing origins tracings. on capitol hill, it's billed as one of low confidence as confirmation of long-held beliefs, including republican congressman michael mccall who says now is the time for the entire biden administration to join the department of energy, the federal bureau of investigation, and the majority of americans, by publicly concluding what common sense told us at the start, the covid-19 pandemic originated from a lab leak in wuhan china. the other involved a wet market in wuhan, eating a bat that was sick, leading to natural transmission, but the lab leak

theory makes more sense to democrats in d.c. >> i mean, look, i'm not entirely surprised. the chinese have mishandled covid every step of the way, trying to sweep it under the rug, trying to try a strategy of zero covid that utterly failed. >> on the hill some democrats aren't surprised, but at the white house officials have said from the start the lab leak shouldn't be a default. >> has the white house seen any circumstantial evidence that it did not originate in the lab? >> i caution you against disproving a negative there, which is never the responsible approach in our view when it comes to getting to the bottom of the root causes of a pandemic that's killed hundreds of thousands of people in the united states. >> president biden hasn't said anything about this yet. he's in the air right now, coming back from a weekend away in delaware. if he does talk about it, we should have that video later this hour. >> okay, peter doocy, thank you.

>> mark, nice to see you. we don't have to seat 6 feet apart. >> my weekend was a 12. my son's team won. now i'm here with you. >> what you did not hear from any of those clips is let's keep an open mind. did not happen. >> most americans looked at this and said, well, duh, of course it came from a lab. every normal person in america has known for years that it came from a lab. think about it. it happened in wuhan, the home of the wuhan institute of virology that studies bat coronaviruses. they were doing research, at biosafety level two instead of four, with spacesuits. three people from the wuhan lab got sick in november 2019 at the start of the pandemic and had to go to the hospital with covid symptoms. yeah, it didn't come from a lab. i mean, this is a two-minute

decision. >> it's a long list. dana? >> let's talk about the government and the media response, because here's jonathan turley, what he wrote in the "new york post," that the covid lab leak is government censorship. that's the next step, if the government are willing to do introspection and ask themselves why did we insist on telling people it wasn't from a lab, when it could have been, even if it's low confidence, that is what they believe. >> why is there no 9/11 commission for the covid pandemic? we got so many things wrong from the response. you look at fauci's mistakes from the beginning of this, saying for six weeks that there was no community spread in the u.s. when it was, because they were using a flu surveillance system instead of a covid surveillance system, which you had to present with symptoms, and everyone was asymptomatic. two, dismissing masking. the list of things he got wrong to this. no one has been held to account.

there's been no investigation. why did they screw up the testing? >> this is so important, the point you just made, because the world health organization is not going to do. they did round one. they're not going to pursue round two. >> we have to look at our response, why we got it wrong, because obviously it's going to happen again at some point, because china is not going to become more democratic, more open, not going to stop doing this kind of research. what did we do? why was our response so bad? also why did our public health experts go out and say things that turned out to be completely wrong? the other big issue that we need to do introspection is the media. the media didn't just downplay this. they made fun of people who said this was a possibility. they dismissed it. >> they canceled people. >> they canceled people over it. they were dead wrong. why did they do that? i think the reason is because at the time it was a 2020 election, and any effort to blame china was seen as an effort to blame

donald trump. they were not going to go along with anything. it was political. the polls show that confidence in the media has absolutely plummeted. in 1977, 71% of americans had a good deal of trust in the media. it's down to 7% now. this has consequences, because when, for example, president trump says the election is stolen, and the majority of americans believe him, the media says it's not true, they're like the boy who called wolf, the people who gave us the russia collusion policy, who pushed the steele dossier, the lab leak, all the rest of it. people don't trust the media. there's no neutral arbiter of truth in the country, and as a result people get away with things that aren't true. >> you brought up presidential politics. we had a new poll over the weekend. we'll talk more about covid throughout this hour. the republican nominee preference, fox news poll just released yesterday, in 2024, donald trump, at 44%.

ron desantis, 28%. and others a distant 2%, like a greg abbott. is this shaping up to be a huge cattle call with a lot of candidates or a couple, two or three? >> if you look at the fox poll, a majority of americans don't want donald trump to be the republican nominee and don't want joe biden to be the nominee. the difference between the two parties is, is that the democrats have no palatable alternative. why is joe biden president today? because he was the least worst candidate, the one guy they thought was electable. look at the embarrassment of riches on the right. tim scott, ron desantis, nikki haley. we have a deep bench. if the two parties were left to choose other than trump and other than biden, we have a picture's box of people who can crush the democrats.

>> by the way, did you see "the new york times" today, one of obama's former officials, greg craig, is suggesting that perhaps the democrats should crowd source who they think the vice presidential nominee should be on their own ticket? the vice president can't get a break, even from her own party. >> she's less popular than him. how can you be less popular than joe biden, the worst president in my lifetime? unleashed a plethora of disasters. the democrats don't seem to understand, they think that the midterms came out so well for them, because they're popular. it wasn't. the alternative wasn't popular. >> we'll see when the announcement comes. mark, thank you for being here. >> thanks. >> well, crews continue to clean up the toxic train wreck in ohio. the epa now says hazardous waste will go to certified facilities in ohio, this after other states said it was news to them they'd be dumping grounds. meanwhile residents near the derailment site keep reporting illnesses since they were

exposed to chemicals. mike thibaultin is live in east palestine this morning. good morning, mike. >> good morning, dana. cleanup is restarting at the site of the toxic train wreck, halted over the weekend due a communication breakdown. officials in texas and michigan where the contaminated material was being shipped refused to take any more. five truckloads or 70 tons of contaminated dirt were sent back here, and 102,000 gallons of water used to fight the fires ended up parked here. now the epa says waste facilities in ohio have been located, a deep injection well, three hours away in ohio, and an incinerator in east li liverpoo, ohio, used to burn the dirt. >> we're continuing to look at other solid waste disposal locations. all of this is great news for the people of east palestine and the surrounding communities. >> 15 truckloads or 210 tons of

contaminated soil went to a hazmat facility in wayne county, michigan. half a million gallons of firefighter water went to a facility in harris county, texas. officials say, they're saying no one informed them of the route the waste would take, the final location or the risks. >> one thing that i want to share that i think the public should know, i learned about this, not from a regulatory agency, not from the company, but from a member of the press. that's unacceptable. >> as locals still complain about symptoms ranging from breathing problems to skin rashes and headaches, researchers from texas a&m took the epa's own data and determined there are indeed elevated levels of pollutants since the wreck. >> thank you, m mike tobin.

>> also said, during your testimony on cross-examination, that you hurt the ones you love the most, didn't you? >> i did say that. >> drama on the stand. bombshell testimony from the disgraced attorney alex murdaugh back in court in a matter of 17 minutes today to start a brand-new week. he admitted to a laundry list of crimes, but insists that killing his wife and son are not on that list. nancy grace and former federal prosecutor tray gowdy on deck with guidance for us. dana? >> what will spell defeat for mayor lori lightfoot? >> and joe manchin pressed on whether he still identifies as a democrat. why his answer will some have folks talking.

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>> so west virginia senator joe manchin dodging the question on whether or not he still considers himself to be a democrat. he's not announced a re-election bid for the senate in 2024, but listen to what he he said. >> my main concern, how do we bring this country together, make it work, democrats and republicans be americans again, not party affiliates? i identify as an american many i'm an american through and through. >> i'm going to start using that. >> you're an american? >> i'm an american. >> of that there's no doubt. >> could be a good race.

>> it was an interesting answer. president trump won by 47 points in west virginia. i think that the writing is on the wall that jim justice would beat him, but i think that joe manchin is not making a decision to run for re-election to the senate. i think he's waiting to see about biden running for president, and he might try to give it a shot running as a third party. >> as an independent? >> uh-huh. >> i could see that. it's possible. >> i know. i'm just throwing stuff out there. >> are you still a democrat? i'm an american. >> i got it. >> hey, want you to get to the alex murdaugh murder trial, riff inveriveting the country, took e stand last week, denying killing his wife and son. the prosecution drilled him in a two-day cross-examination.

>> it was the drug paranoia, the fact that the deputy took your gsr, that your law partners and greg alexander and the sheriff were telling you needed a lawyer before you talked to police, all those reasons that you just gave this injury about the most important part of your testimony was a lie too. isn't that true, mr. murdaugh? >> i disagree with that. >> nothing further. >> joining us nancy grace. nancy, i want to play one more bit of testimony that caught my attention. this was when he was talking about his very serious drug addiction problem. >> how pills were you using a day. >> maybe 1,000 milligrams, 1200 milligrams a day. >> how many pills is that? >> a hundred. >> taking 60 a day, something like that. >> there were days when i took more than that. i had a pocket full of pills on june 8th when i was sitting in l

car. >> how will this factor into what the jury might be thinking, nancy? >> well, the prosecution argues it correctly, it will factor in in the manner that when you are that high on opioids, you don't know what you're doing. that's a $50,000 a week drug habit. that's much more than most people make in a year. he's spinning it in a week. i find it hard to believe, because a high tolerance to opioids does not preclude you from an od. also the jury will hear instruction from the judge when you reads the law to the jury, by which they're to judge the case, that voluntary use of drugs and alcohol is not a defense. right now murdaugh is arguing he didn't it, but he's been caught in a big lie, a lot of big lies, but most important one, the very

night of the murders, he knew to lie at the critical four, five-minute interval with the murders occurred. now, as somebody gone from the scene for two hours, would know that's when the murders occurred? why did he lie? >> let's show you the trial timeline here. the defense will rest today apparently. tomorrow, rebuttal witnesses. i've heard there's four or five. you tell me if that's wrong. wednesday and thursday, we expect closing arguments. then the jury will get instructions on friday. how do you think the jury took to murdaugh as a witness world overall? >> at the beginning they were sympathetic during his direct examination, but then as cross-examine went on and on, and, yes, i know it was laborious, tedious, but the prosecutor did what he had to do. he had bags you should his eyes down to -- under his eyes down

to here. many of the jurors were physically turning away like that, although i heard that one of the jurors handed him a box of kleenex. did not like that. >> okay. so then the rebuttal witnesses, are these called then by the prosecution or the defense? how does that work? >> yeah. well, this is how it goes -- the state has the burden of proof. they have finished their case in chief. the defense is completing its case, we think either two to four witnesses. probably a pathologist and crime scene expert, whatever else they can dig up. in a lot of jurisdictions, you don't have to give notice of who your rebuttal and sur rebuttal witnesses will be. the state will rebut what the defense does. we're expecting two to three rebuttal witnesses. >> nancy grace, you're down there for us during this critical trial that's captured attention across america.

thank you for that. we'll be back in touch later this week. thank you. >> court resumes 6:00 from now. we'll watch it. missouri officials working overtime to oust the top prosecutor in st. louis after her office finally put a robbery suspect behind bars despite 50 bond violations. we'll talk to a robbery victim's father about that. the war in ukraine, new strikes against russian forces in the east. get a live update from kyiv and analysis from the general. >> are they increasingly convinced that he knows better than anyone else what's at stake for russia? i think his sense of destiny and appetite for risk has increased in recent years as well. ♪ we all have a purpose in life - a “why.” maybe it's perfecting that special place that you want to keep in the family... ...or passing down the family business... ...or giving back to the places that inspire you.

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chief international correspondent steve harrigan is live in the capital of kyiv. what's it like there today? >> a series of drone attacks from russia in ukraine. overnight, a second city targeted by the russians as well. drones, iranian made, flying low and slow, and sound like lawn mowers. they're simple items, but deadly as well. they drop and explode on contact. they often kill civilians. they killed two more civilians last night. >> these things are devastating. they've been difficult to stop. unfortunately the citizens of kyiv have to live underneath this terror from the russians and the iranians as they fire these indiscriminate weapons in. >> now in the russian-controlled city in maripol, they've this 14 explosions in the last week

alone. the city 60 miles from the front line, are they using long-range artillery? the russians say no. >> a ukrainian city, and this is not the long-range weaponry. it's something else. >> of course that city maripol could be a spring target in any offensive by the ukrainians. dana, back to you. >> thank you. >> just want to give our viewers a state of the play here. this goes back to your map of february 2022, when the war first broke out. everything you see in red was either controlled prewar by the russians or quickly after the war began. then you come one year later to february of 2023, and you see the big change here, especially in the north. the red is gone. the blue areas, places where the ukrainians recaptured, but what you also notice in the east, in

the southeast, there's more territory that's been consumed by putin's army. again, watch this here. okay? that's a year ago. this is where we are now, in february of '23, you see it fill in. what is the contribution on behalf of the united states? it is significant. far and away more significant than any other entity in the world. the united states military financing humanitarian contributions so far, some say upwards of $110 billion to $115 billion total, easily dwarfing canada and on down the line. in the short term, at the moment, your gas prices, shot up significantly. okay? here's the start of the war. we peaked right around this mark. it was about june of 2022. that's just about $5.10 a gallon nationwide. we've since come down, but that was the effect of putin's war,

what we're dealing with today as consumers. general keane is with us now. nice to have you on today. welcome to our show. want to play two clips for you. okay? michael mccall and condoleezza rice over the weekend. listen. >> i know the administration says as long as it takes. i think with the right weapons it shouldn't take so long. quite frankly, martha, this whole thing is taking too long. it didn't have to happen this way. >> i do think we seem to be behind in what we provide to the ukrainians. if i could say one thing, perhaps to anticipate a little bit better what the ukrainians are going to need, because it takes a long time to supply. >> i essentially hear them saying the same thing, general. what about you? >> i agree with both of those statements. i mean, when we make a statement that we're going to be there until it ends, be there until it's finished, that's really not much of a strategy. and really it plays into putin's hands. i mean, his fundamental position is that he believes, beca that n

outlast the ukrainians, outlast the political will of the united states and the western-led coalition. that's his position. so time and years he believes are on his side. what we should be doing, many of us are advocating, is that we end this as quickly as we can. that saves thousands and thousands of lives, and also billions and billions of dollars. let's get it over with quickly. the ukrainians certainly have the iron will and determination to do that. they've been displaying that for over a year. we have to give them the capacity to do that. what the administration has done, bill, in giving them the weapons they have is commendable. the europeans have stepped up too. it's not fair to just look at the billions of dollars, because the united states is the wealthiest country on earth. if you look at it as a percentage of gdp, about half a

dozen countries are giving more than the united states does based on the amount of wealth they have. the europeans, while not all of them have given the way we would like them to do, you got to give them credit for what they have done. the real issue is we're delaying sophisticated advanced weapons, and we've done it for over a year, that handcuffed the ukrainians from doing all they can do to exploit the success that they have and take even more territory back and also eventually end the war. that is, i think, what needs to be done. >> let's go farther north. that's the possibility of china maybe giving weapons to russia. jake sullivan was on yesterday. here he is. take a listen to this. >> beijing will have to make its own decisions about how proceeds, whether it provides military assistance. if it goes down that road it will come at real costs to china. i think china's leaders are weighing that as they make their decisions. >> do you think china is weighing that? >> yeah, i think that -- well,

first of all, give the administration credit for putting this out there publicly. they have classified information. they also wanted to deter china from taking this action. why would china actually consider doing this? if they look at this and see if putin loses that certainly is going to strengthen the united states' hand and the western democracies writ large. also what they're concerned about in their region, south of south korea, taiwan, japan and australia. and what china is looking at is they want to replace the united states as the world leader, and also dominate that region of the world. so i think they have some interest and a favorable outcome with russia. i'm not certain what they give them. if it's munitions and some additional drones and other things. it certainly will help. i'm not convinced it would be decisive. and also, the coalition that would organize against them quite surprising, the eu said

that if china provides lethal aid to russia it will a red line for them and fundamentally change the relationship with china. that is interesting, because a number of european countries have very close ties to china. >> they sure do. >> china has got an issue. there's positives and negatives to what action they take. i would hope that they don't provide the lethal aid. >> we'll see when that summit happens with xi and putin. they say it's going to happen in the spring. we'll see what happens. thank you, sir. talk to you later in the week. >> yeah. >> there was a piece i read yesterday. it popped up. oh, my gosh, we have to read this by a reporter that does incredible work overseas. he wrote about reporting on ukraine. he said hell on earth. i reported from the war in ukraine, what i witnessed still haunts me. it's a good reminder that for the reporters there on the ground, bringing us these

stories, they see a lot. they try to interpret it for us so we can see it. but some of those images don't leave them. he was honest and open about how that can be tough. we wish him the best as he continues to do amazing work. grown so much over the years as we've gotten to know him. such a young man. now he's risen to a high standard. >> it takes a long time to absorb those emotions, those feelings, those thoughts. and for a lot of people it takes a lifetime and a lot of -- >> uh-huh. >> now with regard to ukraine, this at the moment is trench warfare. they're fighting over city blocks, fighting over streets. sometimes they're fighting over sidewalks it appears. i mean, this war right now is not moving considerably one direction or the other. to keane's point, maybe he's exactly right. maybe you flood the zone right now with these weapons, to give the ukrainians the advantage, otherwise we may find ourselves in this situation for months.

so watch that. we'll see how it goes. so to trey and steve harrigan, everybody else, hang tough. here's this. >> suck it up. if defunding the police needs to happen, we need to defund the police and put the money into social saf-t-nets. we're trying to save lives. >> we'll bring you that story in just a few minutes. and a historic storm hitting southern california, grinding traffic to a halt. we have details. could save a lot of money every month by paying off your car loan and paying off your high rate credit card debt? and still have cash left over to put in the bank? with a newday 100 va cash out loan, you could do it all. take out an average of $70,000 - with no upfront fees. no upfront appraisal fees, termite inspection, or water test fee. because a veteran shouldn't have to come up with money to get money.

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>> billionaire liberal activist george soros backs progressive district attorneys across the

country, but recent data from those cities shows an alarming spike in violent crime. we pull it together. >> he will continue using his wall street profits to skirt campaign finance laws to elect democrat prosecutors who favor soft on crime policies. >> turning around the criminal legal system in this country in a way that will become more humane. >> the offensive prostitution, which we made a determination that in general we were not going to prosecute, because we think it does more harm than good. >> soros spent more than $75 million to put liberals in office, including those seen here, most who support zero bail to keep jails empty, dropping misdemeanors, gang and gun charges, reduce parole, pleading down felonies to misdemeanor, less jail, more probation, and no juvenile, even violent offenders, should be tried as an

adult. >> prosecutors who understand their job and their job is to do justice, it's not just to throw the code book away and not prosecute anybody. when you take away consequences, even for low-level crime, guess what, crime goes up and society devolves into chaos. >> there's no proof reform policies create safer streets and less crime. >> it's the perception of the likelihood of getting caught. >> voters in some communities like norfolk, virginia, don't just blame the da for the spike in crime, they blame soros. felons are 20% likely to commit crimes if in prison longer. >> thank you. >> this next story is a doozy. my next guest accusing st. louis

prosecutor kim gardner of incompetency at the highest level. he says the man on the left-hand side of the screen robbed his son at gunpoint in 2020. he was supposed to go to trial for that, but gardner's spainly dropped and later had to refile the charges. the same suspect is now accused of plowing a car into a teenage volleyball player in st. louis. doctors were forced to amputate both her legs. she's only 17 years old. former st. louis police sergeant was the young man robbed. sir, good morning to you. wow. can you explain to us what happened to your son? they called you and said he was dead. how did that happen? >> yes. i had a local reporter call me, and said are you familiar with this press release they just put

out, the office of kim gardner? they were contesting the fact that he had 50 to 100 viol violations, and the victim of the robbery is deceased, that we didn't keep him under house arrest. i was, like, are you kidding me? the first thing i did was call our victim council here under kim gardner's office. they informed me, yeah, your son is deceased. i'm sitting in my kitchen looking at him. obviously he's not. they inform me they're going to take care of this right away. we're sorry for the mistake. the next day, i get a call from the reporter saying that there was three suspects that robbed my son at gunpoint. the suspect number two had shaqed somebody else out under house arrest and that person later died. >> unbelievable. >> that person had the same first name as my son unfortunately. they determined that anybody with the same first name as the

other subject and mine must be deceased. once again, here we are. the second subject who shot this guy, who later died of a homicide, he had multiple ankle bracelet violation too. >> unbelievable. you're a former cop. you know when the rap sheet is so long, you have to take action. if you don't, someone will pay a price. the 17-year-old girl did. she lost both legs. >> that's right. >> apparently she was pinned against the car that he was driving, so severely, that only the action of her father, who's a military veteran, was able to save her life. she's a star volleyball player, who will never play the game again. >> you know, this never should have happened. the guy that robbed my son, him and two other associates, robbed my son at gunpoint. this isn't somebody stealing a car, doing sheriff's doing shoplifting.he had up to s

where he left a home monitoring device. my son being a victim of a armed robbery, he should have been notified immediately, and for this person to be on the street, continuing to commit crimes, is outrageous. >> you're exactly right. >> the other suspect actually shot suspect under house arrest. >> unbelievable. you'll testify before the state legislature. when does that happen? >> today. going to say we can't allow people like kim gardner to be prosecutors in this state, letting us down. the safety of everyone here is in jeopardy because of the inept prosecutor here. there's cases where they drop homicide cases because a prosecutor failed to show up. how does that happen? i feel so sorry for this girl. st. louisians have let her down. >> jim, thank you for sharing your story.

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>> what a privilege it is for you to have me here this evening, ladies and gentlemen. don't worry. i'm going to get them all tonight. we can learn to get along for god's sake. did they apologize? hell no. >> and finally, dear abc. >> so shocking new reports showing the students and dozens in public schools across the country are not able to read or do math at grade level. hmm. we have the report card out of chicago. garrett, hello. >> bill, what makes the numbers even more concerning is that most parents don't realize how far behind their kids are. the nation's report card done by the by the national assessment of educational process, found for that fourth grade math in los angeles and chicago only 20% of students were proficient. now for chicago, that's an 11%

drop from 2019. in baltimore and detroit, the already low number of students who tested proficient prepandemic got cut in half last year to 7% to 3%. reading, a lot of drops are to blame on the pandemic, impacts from remote learning. the federal government gave schools $190 billion, part of which was to help students catch up on lost learning, but thomas kane, an education researcher at harvard says that learning loss could be permanent. >> what nobody is doing is asking, okay, is there any reason to believe that's going to be enough? some school districts lost the equivalent of a whole year's worth of learning. you're not going to replace that with, like, getting 10% of kids to show up at summer school. just do the math on that.

>> 92% of parents believe their child is at or above grade level when in reality is only a third of students who are. good grades not reflecting how far behind their classes are on the curriculum, because of all of that lost learning during the pandemic. >> thanks, garrett. >> well, it's 10:00 a.m. eastern. the clock is ticking as defense secretary lloyd austin faces a deadline on capitol hill. house republicans are giving austin until the end of the day to answer their calls for a full investigation after some of their military records were released without authorization to a group with close ties to democrats. how can that happen? we will discuss it. welcome to a brand-new hour of "america's news room."i'm dana . >> i'm bill hemmer.